Searching for Belonging – An Analytical Framework

Abstract Belonging is a notion both vaguely defined and ill‐theorized. Scholars in various social disciplines often take this notion for granted, as if its meaning is somewhat self‐explanatory. Others tend to equate it with the notion of identity, citizenship, or both. By relying on a critical reading of an extensive literature across academic disciplines, this study aims to offer an analytical framework for the study of belonging. I argue that belonging should be analyzed both as a personal, intimate, feeling of being ‘at home’ in a place (place‐belongingness) and as a discursive resource that constructs, claims, justifies, or resists forms of socio‐spatial inclusion/exclusion (politics of belonging). The…